| Introduction
"We
know that nothing matters more in improving education than giving every
child access to the best possible teaching. There is no calling more
noble, no profession more vital and no service more important than teaching.
It is because we believe in the importance of teaching – as the
means by which we liberate every child to become the adult they aspire
to be – that this White Paper has been written. The importance
of teaching cannot be over-stated"
The philosophy
in the first section is that there is too much centralisation of the
system and that teachers and head teachers want more freedoms with respect
to curriculum, qualifications, behaviour, budgets and goals. There has
been a decrease in the confidence of qualifications, esp. recent vocational
qualifications used for GCSE equivalence and that there has been an
increase in the attainment gap between different parts of society.
Teacher
Training
- Raise
the bar for entry to PGCE teacher training by ceasing to provide Department
for Education funding for applicants who do not hold at least a 2:2
degree or equivalent from September 2012.
- Review
the operation of the current ‘basic skills’ tests of literacy
and numeracy which teachers are required to pass before they can practice.
We will make sure student teachers take the test at the start rather
than the end of the course, reduce the scope for retaking, and strengthen
the rigour of the tests to ensure they set a high enough standard.
- Highly
effective models of teacher training (including those of Finland,
Singapore, Teach First and Teach for America) systematically use assessments
of aptitude, personality and resilience as part of the candidate selection
process. We are trialling such assessments and, subject to evaluation,
plan to make them part of the selection process for teacher training.
- Provide
funding to more than double the size of Teach First from 560 new teachers
to 1,140 each year by the end of this Parliament. This will include
extending it across the country, and into primary schools.
- Teach
Next will seek to draw in talented professionals with similarly strong
academic records and interpersonal skills to those on Teach First,
and with experience of the world of work. It will provide an accelerated
route to leadership, will begin recruiting in 2011, and by September
2013 will have trained and placed around 200 highly talented career
changers.
- Encourage
Armed Forces leavers to become teachers, by developing a ‘Troops
to Teachers’ programme which will sponsor service leavers to
train as teachers. We will pay tuition fees for PGCEs for eligible
graduates leaving the Armed Forces and work with universities to explore
the possibility of establishing a bespoke compressed undergraduate
route into teaching targeted at Armed Forces leavers who have the
relevant experience and skills but may lack degree level qualifications.
- Explore
how we might pay off the student loans of high-performing graduates
in shortage subjects who wish to enter teaching. Incentives could
be tailored to offer more to graduates with good degrees and to those
who would teach shortage subjects.
- Examine
how to provide scholarships through university for capable students
who commit to entering teaching after graduation
- Reform
initial teacher training so that more training is on the job, and
it focuses on key teaching skills including teaching early reading
and mathematics, managing behaviour and responding to pupils’
Special Educational Needs.
- More
opportunities for a larger proportion of trainees to learn on the
job by improving and expanding the best of the current school-based
routes into teaching – school-centred initial teaching training
and the graduate teacher programme.
- Subject
to legislation, the key functions of the Training and Development
Agency (TDA), some of which are outlined above, will transfer to the
Department for Education, where they will be exercised by an executive
agency that is directly accountable to Ministers.
- Create
a new national network of Teaching Schools, on the model of teaching
hospitals, giving outstanding schools the role of leading the training
and professional development of teachers and head teachers. In parallel,
we will invite some of the best higher education providers of initial
teacher training to open University Training Schools.
- Review
the QTS standards from the existing 33 to ensure that the new standards
have a stronger focus on key elements of teaching.
- Detailed
proposals for the funding of initial teacher training to come early
in 2011.
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to top
National
Curriculum / Schooling / CPD
- A tighter,
more rigorous, model of the knowledge (subject content) which every
child should expect to master in core subjects at every key stage.
The curriculum should embody rigour and high standards and outline
a core of knowledge in the traditional subject disciplines.
- Ensure
support available to every school for the teaching of systematic synthetic
phonics, as the best method for teaching reading;
- Introduce
the English Baccalaureate (for any student who secures good GCSE or
iGCSE passes in English, mathematics, the sciences, a modern or ancient
foreign language and a humanity such as history or geography) to encourage
schools to offer a broad set of academic subjects to age 16, whether
or not students then go down an academic or vocational route.
- There
needs to be room in the life of the school for an exploration of wider
social issues which contribute to the well-being and engagement of
all students. It should be for teachers, not government, to design
the lessons and the experiences which will engage students. Government
can help by clearing away the clutter of unnecessary curricular detail,
and restricting itself to outlining the core knowledge children should
expect to acquire.
- Leaving
age to rise to 17 in 2013 and 18 by 2015
- Give
schools more freedom to reward good performance and make it easier
for them to tackle poor performance by extending pay flexibilities
and simplifying performance management and capability procedures.
- Create
‘Specialist Leaders of Education’ – excellent professionals
in leadership positions below the head teacher (such as deputies,
bursars, heads of department) who will support others in similar positions
in other school
- From
2011 we will introduce a competitive national scholarship scheme to
support professional development.
- Reform
the NPQH - including the introduction of new qualifications
- Increase
the numbers of local and national leaders in education
- Strengthen
the powers schools have over detention, discipline and exclusion and
extend head teachers’ powers to punish school pupils who misbehave
on their way to or from school
- Academies
and Free Schools will retain the freedom they have at the moment to
depart from aspects of the National Curriculum where they consider
it appropriate. But they will be required by law, like all schools,
to teach a broad and balanced curriculum.
- From
September 2011 all local authorities are required to provide full-time
education for all children in alternative provision.
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Assessment
- National
testing: at age 6, a simple test of pupils’ ability to decode
words; at 11, as pupils complete primary education; and at 16 as pupils
complete compulsory schooling. The National Curriculum will continue
to inform the design and content of assessment at the end of key stage
two, which will apply to every child and which will provide a guide
to the performance of primary schools, it will also continue to inform
the design and content of GCSEs.
- We
have asked Lord Bew to conduct an independent review of the effectiveness
of the existing key stage two tests.
- Special
recognition in performance tables to those schools which are helping
their pupils to attain breadth of study via the English Baccalaureate
- Explore
where linear A-levels can be adapted to provide the depth of synoptic
learning which the best universities value.
- Ask
Ofqual to change the rules on GCSE and A-level re-sits to prevent
students from re-sitting large numbers of units.
- Ask
Ofqual to consider how best to reform GCSEs so that exams are typically
taken only at the end of the course.
- Ask
Ofqual to advise on how mark schemes could take greater account of
the importance of spelling, punctuation and grammar for examinations
in all subjects.
- Professor
Wolf will consider what controls are needed to ensure that vocational
qualifications offered to students in schools, colleges or independent
training providers up to the age of 19 are as robust and appropriate
as GCSEs and A Levels.
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Accountability/League
Tables
- Reform
performance tables so that they set out our high expectations –
every pupil should have a broad education (the English Baccalaureate),
a firm grip of the basics and be making progress;
- Establish
a new ‘floor standard’ for primary and secondary schools,
which sets an escalating minimum expectation for attainment. These
will be, in the first instance, 35% (A*-C inc. En and Ma), and 60%
(Level 4+) for primaries
- Remove
the requirement for every school to have a school improvement partner
and a self-improvement plan
- Allow
governing bodies more freedom including setting the length of the
school day
- Schools
will be free to exclude pupils, but they will then be responsible
for finding and funding alternative provision themselves. Schools
will be held accountable for the pupils they exclude. The academic
performance of excluded children would count in the school performance
tables.
- Make
publicly available all the information which underpins government
statistical publications.
- We
will put an end to the current ‘contextual value added’
(CVA) measure. We should expect every child to succeed and measure
schools on how much value they add for all pupils, not rank them on
the make-up of their intake.
- For
both primary and secondary schools, we will put greater emphasis on
the progress of every child – setting out more prominently in
performance tables how well pupils progress and institute a new measure
of how well deprived pupils do and introduce a measure of how young
people do when they leave school;
- Ofsted
will consult on a new framework with a clear focus on just four things
– pupil achievement, the quality of teaching, leadership and
management, and the behaviour and safety of pupils and they will adopt
a highly (temporal) proportionate approach to inspection.
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Funding
- Target
more resources on deprived pupils over the next four years, through
a new ‘Pupil Premium’: extra money for each deprived pupil.
- Consult
on developing and introducing a clear, transparent and fairer national
funding formula based on the needs of pupils, to work alongside the
Pupil Premium;
- End
the disparity in funding for 16–18 year-olds, so that schools
and colleges are funded at the same levels as one another
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Behaviour
- Increase
the authority of teachers to discipline pupils by strengthening their
powers to search pupils, issue detentions and use force where necessary.
- Support
teachers to challenge behaviour by legislating to grant them anonymity
when accused by pupils and speeding up investigations (In the Commons,
Gove said anonymity would be up to the point of a teacher being charged).
- Strengthen
head teachers’ authority to maintain discipline beyond the school
gates and improve exclusion processes.
- Change
the current system of independent appeal panels for exclusions so
that they take less time and ensure that pupils who have committed
a serious offence cannot be re-instated (N.B.The election promise
to abolish appeals panels seems to have been dropped).
- Ensure
that all children being educated in alternative provision get a full-time
education.
- Improve
the quality of alternative provision by giving existing providers
more autonomy and encouraging new providers – including new
alternative provision Free Schools.
- Pilot
a new approach to permanent exclusions where schools have the power,
money and responsibility to secure alternative provision for excluded
pupils
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New
Schools
- Restore
for all Academies the freedoms they originally had, while continuing
to ensure a level playing field on admissions, particularly in relation
to children with Special Educational Needs.
- Dramatically
extend the Academies programme so that all schools (including special
and PRU) can take on the autonomy Academy status offers - expect every
school judged by Ofsted to be outstanding or good with outstanding
features which converts into an Academy to commit to supporting at
least one weaker school in return for Academy status.
- Support
– not turn away – teachers, charities, parent groups and
others who have the vision and drive to open Free Schools in response
to parental demand, especially in areas of deprivation where there
is significant dissatisfaction with the choices available.
- Where
there is a need for a new school, the first choice will be a new Academy
or Free School.
- We
will consult on a simplified and less prescriptive Admissions Code
early in the New Year so that a revised Code is in place by July 2011.
Oddities
- On
p56 they quote Tony Blair
Note:
this is a synopsis of the white paper by Paul Hopkins - and errors of
precis are his and for certainly you should read the white paper in
its original form. |
